Star Wars: The Bad Batch

In Secret

by Gabrielle Lawson

Chapter Eleven

Echo set the navicomputer and initiated the hyperdrive. Then he turned to the waiting members of his squad and Phee. "When I scomped in, Tech was there. Hemlock had done something similar to what was done to me on Skako Minor." He pointed to his head so Phee would understand. "He was there and we communicated briefly. He wanted me to copy a large batch of files. While I was working on that, I sent Wrecker and Hunter on. But Tech sent one last message shortly after. He said, 'Hemlock is here!' That didn't bode well. When I got to the hangar bay, he was with AZI and a doctor. Hunter looked very worried and Omega was crying. The files I copied included Nala Se's instructions on keeping him alive, but he has new injuries from Hemlock."

"What new injuries?" Phee asked, worried.

"I don't know the specifics," Echo told her. "But Omega is fine. She's with Hunter on the shuttle with Tech and the doctor. They're going to Rex's garage. And that's where we're going."

"This Tech was the man inside?" one of the freed prisoners asked. "He had something connecting his head to the computers?"

"Yes," Crosshair answered. "He orchestrated everything. How did you find the base?"

"He requested your armor and weapons from Barton IV," Echo told Crosshair. "Rex had a tracking beacon put in the crate before it left Barton IV. He tracked it to Pantora where it joined other items from the requisition. Then it was tracked to the Weyland System. And yesterday, his contacts reported a live call sent to add something to the latest requisition, only Tech decrypted just a few words of it. '1409 CCs in two days.' That's how I knew it was him and what Hemlock had done. 1409 is my CT number. And the 'two days' was just telling us when we needed to be there."

"Or the revolt would have happened either way," Crosshair stated. "In fact, it did. You were late the party."

Echo chuckled. "We could tell." He looked to Phee. "There were dead and dying people all over that base. There was little to no resistance."

The clones all smiled at that. "He had us take Communications and Security," one of them said. "When Security saw everyone congregating in the hangar, we figured we could leave."

"Meanwhile," Echo said, picking up the story again, "Nala Se went to the lower level to release a Zillo Beast that was held there. Hemlock must have found her. She couldn't get out. But she told me assured me that Hemlock would die with his base."

"Nala Se is dead?" Crosshair asked. "She helped him. He wouldn't have known what poison to use, how to formulate the rations. She gave instructions."

"I would have to think so," Echo answered. "She helped us escape Kamino the first time. She went against her own people, too. She called us her sons."

"She did what I wanted to do," Crosshair stated. "Destroy that base."

"What's a Zillo Beast," Phee asked.

Echo moved to the computer and pulled up the records on the one that attacked Coruscant. "A creature that feeds on energy and grows exponentially when it does. It is impervious to blaster fire and even light sabers."

"Fitting end then," one of the clones said. He was holding his right arm. "I escaped that lab. I'm one of the very few who did."

Wrecker opened one of the bunks. "If you need to rest, you can use my rack."

"Who are you guys?" one of the others asked. "Your armor is different. You don't look like clones."

"I was a reg like you," Echo told him. "Until Skako Minor. Crosshair and Wrecker here are part of an elite group of defective clones, to put it blunt. Only the defects were actually desirable, so Nala Se enhanced them. Crosshair here has excellent eyesight. He can spot enemies before the rest of us. And he can shoot them. He doesn't miss. Ever. Wrecker can lift this ship."

Wrecker lifted Gonky and raised him a couple times on just one arm as a demonstration.

"Hunter has heightened senses," Echo went on. "He can sense disturbances in the electromagnetic field. Sense danger before it hits. And Tech is, well, a genius. I understand why Hemlock would want him. But there was no way he was going to control Tech. Tech can hack just about anything."

"Glad he was on our side," said a clone. "I'd like to shake his hand one day."

"You boys hungry?" Phee asked them.

"Nah, we had breakfast," one of them answered.

She turned to Crosshair. "Why weren't you with the others all this time?"

"I had the wrong perspective," Crosshair told her, "until very recently."

"Didn't we all," said another clone. "I used to be one of the troopers assigned to the base. When they replaced us, Hemlock asked if we'd volunteer for his experiments. When we said we wouldn't, that was counted as disobedience. So we all got put in the cells."

Rex had counted six other shuttles besides the one Hunter and Tech were in. He put in a call to Howser, who was piloting one of them. "Take those clones to our secondary location and stand by. Garage can't fit everyone. Pass the word along. Only my ship, the shuttle Kyl is piloting and the Marauder should go there. Unless you have wounded, then drop them off first."

"Copy that. Do let us know we just witnessed, will ya?" Howser replied. "Some of these boys want to know who to thank."

"I'll wait until I've got the whole story," Rex told him. "It's got a be a good one. The base was taken before we even got there."

"The boys said they had a man inside," Howser added. "If one man did all of that, I'd like to meet him."

"You have," Rex said, chuckling. "He was with Clone Force 99. They infiltrated Rampart's Ventanor to back up the data on the attack on Kamino for Senator Chuchi. He was the skinny one in goggles. Only now he's fighting for his life."

"Then I hope he survives. Keep us updated. Howser out."

Rex hoped he would, too. He'd told Echo he'd believe with him, but he still had held a lot of doubt that Tech had survived his fall. Turns out he had and Echo was right. But he didn't land on his feet, that was certain. He called ahead to the garage. He wanted to request Senator Chuchi bring on of her doctors to assist with Tech or at least the other wounded.

The surgery had lasted several hours. But now that it was done and Tech was stable, Emerie worked at finishing setting up all the other medical equipment. There was enough here to turn the half of the shuttle into a mobile medical station. AZI was still working on Tech, so she couldn't cover him up yet. There were immobilizing wraps for all the fractures. Once the paralytic wore off, he'd probably try to move his limbs. His upper limbs might respond but his lower ones would not. She had hoped to prevent that, to offer a chance that the spinal compression could have been healed. But there was nothing more she could do there.

She set the immobilizing wraps within easy reach of AZI and continued her work. And while she did, she thought. She thought about what had happened, what she had seen, and what she had done. She wasn't conflicted about fighting Hemlock. He wasn't a good person, not during the Republic and not during the Empire. And the Empire did give him a position of power. So she wasn't conflicted so much about leaving it. In a sense. It was still out there. She's thought she couldn't do anything against a power that large. But Tech had, even paralyzed and blinded. He'd used Omega. Nala Se wrote instructions for his survival, so she was in on it. And the only one who could have poisoned the food is the one who delivered it. So he had Crosshair. And with just three people, he'd killed nearly everyone who worked at that base.

And that's why she was conflicted. She'd spent most of the last two months in Critical Care with him, making sure he was well, not for Hemlock, but for him. She'd hated what Hemlock had done to him, felt it was cruel to leave his limbs untreated. But he'd accomplished the murder of hundreds of people. And he did it just with his mind.

She understood why he did it. It was the only way to get out of the base. The prisoners were locked up, and even if he freed them, they would have been outnumbered. He could argue that everyone working at that base was supporting Hemlock in his work. Even her. But he'd spared her. Had he even known the outside troops would have come? Everyone was pretty much dead by the time Hunter had shot at Hemlock.

She stopped and turned to Hunter, who was holding Omega in his arms. "How did you know where the base was? How did you know to come?"

Hunter looked at one of the crates, a long black box. "Crosshair's weapons and armor. Transferred from Baron IV, with a tracker inside. And two days ago, he sent a message, partially encrypted, partially not."

"How did he send a message?" she asked. "All external communications had to go through the Communications Center after Crosshair's attempted escape."

Hunter shrugged. "Don't know the details. Addendum to a requisition. '1409 CCs in two days.' Echo is CT-1409. He was telling Echo what had been done to him."

"He killed hundreds of people," she told him. "I didn't always agree with them, but they were murdered."

"The Empire murders thousands," Hunter replied. "I've seen it. They'll silence anyone who tries to stand against them. It does no good to just put your head down and try to get by. Evil prospers when good people do nothing."

"I'm a physician," she held. "I can't condone the slow poisoning of all those people. But I can't think of another way out."

"When we would infiltrate an Imperial base or outpost, we'd stun the clones." He stroked Omega's hair. "They were shooting live rounds at us. But we would stun them. We didn't go out of our way to kill. Tell me this, what was Hemlock doing to those clones?"

Emerie sighed. She tried not to know. "I tried to keep out of it. But some of the men who came back wounded would say things. Most didn't come back. It had something to do with cloning. The Emperor himself wanted the project to succeed."

"Because clones are property, not people, in their eyes, they can treat them however they wish. Experiment on them. Kill them. We don't have rights. Tech was hooked up to a computer. That's all he could do. He couldn't fight with his hands; he couldn't escape with his feet. Hemlock underestimated him. And he looked for the best way to get every clone out of that base, not just Omega and Crosshair, all of them."

"Even you," Omega replied. "Tech didn't know they were coming. He hoped. For them to come, whoever received his message would need to tell Captain Rex. What were the odds of that? It happened, but he couldn't count on it. R day was always for revolt or rescue. We had to save ourselves first. And you can't just blame Tech. I gave Crosshair the poison. Sometimes people would come in and I would treat their symptoms and send them on their way, knowing there was no cure, that they would eventually die."

"It's war," said one of the armored clones. "The only difference is it's people now, not clankers. And us clones are expendable. If we want live, we have to fight." He turned to Omega. "Thought you said she was with us?"

"I am with you," Emerie decided, again. "I just don't like those tactics. In war, both sides have a fighting chance."

"We didn't have a fighting chance," another clone chimed in. "We were stuck in our cells or strapped down in your infirmary or his lab. We had no chance of escape before the man inside." He tilted his head toward the back where AZI was wrapping Tech's limbs.

Emerie felt her throat constrict. She didn't want to cry. "I miss the Republic. The Republic tried to the right thing. The Empire puts the worst people in charge. I thought it was too big, too powerful, to far-reaching. I couldn't fight it. I couldn't run from it. I didn't think it was possible."

"It's possible," Hunter told her. "Tech showed that. But you don't have to fight the whole thing. It's just one mission at a time. And you don't have to fight anyway. You're a doctor, not a soldier. You just have to choose where and whom you serve."

Maybe that was it. She didn't have to fight. She'd chosen to resist in small ways already. She could choose where and whom she serves. "I think I can do that. Where are we going? What's the garage?"

"A place for like-minded clones and an ally or two," Hunter said. "You'll see. You're not alone anymore."

Emerie wiped at her tears and nodded. She stood and opened the last crate, but there were no medical supplies in it. She lifted a battered and dented helmet with a red stripe over the crown. There was a broken visor that came down over the eye hole.

"Tech's armor!" Omega exclaimed. She left Hunter and joined Emerie. "It's…ruined."

Hunter stood and joined them. He lifted the left sleeve. "Maybe we can get it repaired."

"He's paralyzed," Emerie told them. "He never use it again."

"I wouldn't count him out just yet," remarked the third clone. "He defeated an entire base with just his mind."

"Wait," Omega said, looking around. "All the clones got out. Did anyone get Nala Se out?" She picked up the commlink. "Omega to Echo."

"Echo here. Good to hear your voice again. How's Tech?"

Emerie leaned over so she could be heard. "He's stable, barring any further complications, he'll live."

"That's good to hear," Echo replied.

"Echo, did anyone see Nala Se? Did she get out?"

"Omega, I'm sorry. She went to the lower lab to release the Zillo Beast. She couldn't get out."

"You need to go back for her."

Hunter put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. "Omega, it was a Plan 99."

Omega sniffed. "Tech survived his."

"She's with her people," Echo told her. "She made sure Hemlock died and that no one can take up his work there. She died a hero."

Omega fell into Hunter again, and he held her while she cried. Emerie felt that loss, too. Nala Se was her creator, her mother. She had fought the Empire in her own way.

A few hours later, the ship landed and the shuttle's big door opened. They were, indeed, in a garage. And there were a number of clones looking on. The clones and the pilot exited the shuttle. Emerie checked on Tech again.

"He is stable, but still unconscious," AZI reported.

"That's good to hear." Emerie looked back to see another clone, this one in full army gear.

Hunter stood and lifted Omega. He shook hands with the newcomer. "This is Captain Rex," he told. "He leads this little rebellion."

"Emphasis on little," Rex added. "Though it seems to have grown a bit bigger today."

The Marauder touched down and Crosshair left immediately. He saw the other shuttle had already landed. He hurried over to it. Omega was there in Hunter's arms. She held out an arm to him. Crosshair went to her, and, thus, Hunter. She wrapped an arm around him, and he put his hand on her back. "How is he?"

"Better," she said, sniffling. "Still unconscious. He's paralyzed. Nala Se is dead."

"Echo told us."

Hunter wrapped his other arm around Crosshair's shoulders. "We missed you, Brother."

"You're not going to say you told me so?"

"Don't need to," Hunter replied, releasing him. "You already know."

Crosshair looked past them to where AZI was tending Tech behind a plastic curtain. "I told him to use it."

"That he did," Hunter replied. "It's still hard to believe he's right over there."

"You really believed he was dead?"

"Until two days ago. Felt like a hole in my chest," Hunter admitted. He squeezed Omega. "Losing her made it worse. Finding both of them finally filled it. You're a bonus."

"I believed it for about four minutes. Then Hemlock took us to Critical Care for a reunion," Crosshair told him, rubbing Omega's hair. "Never got to see him after that. My only contact was through Omega here. She's strong. You all trained her well." He finally looked out into the garage they'd landed in. "Captain Rex is here?"

"Rex runs this place," Hunter told him. "They're on mission to save as many clones as they can."

Crosshair liked the sound of that. Especially if it meant shooting more lieutenants. "Sounds fun. But maybe later." He looked back to Tech. "He's my priority."

"Ours, too," Echo said as he, Wrecker, and Phee joined them.

"Can we see him?" Phee asked.

"Not just yet," Hunter said. "AZI is working on him."

"He's really there!" Wrecker exclaimed.

Crosshair had thought he was fine on his own. Now that all his brothers were in one place, on one side, he could feel the lie that was. This felt right.